Monthly Book Round-up: December

The past month was pretty disappointing with regards to the books I read. Here are my takes on Atonement and Brave New World amongst others- as always please feel free to comment with your opinions on these books and this post, or with any book recommendations, which will be greatly appreciated.

Weekly Catch-up 30/11/14

Hello there!

This was a great week- I’ve now got three university offers (including one unconditional eek), I went to see Saturday Night Fever yesterday (which was amazing; I’ve been singing the Bee Gees continually since), and I’ve reached 10,000 words!

WOO!

I’ve never written anything so long before, so this is pretty exciting! I was only going to do the briefest first draft, and I didn’t really expect it to get this long- then, to add more work to my ‘to-do’ list, I realised yesterday night that this story would probably be better in two books, because there’s a lot of a backstory to the bit I’m writing currently. I’ll wait until I’ve finished this first draft before I decide though.

Well, that’s me. I’ll be posting again tomorrow, so keep an eye out!

How’s everyone else’s writing going?

First Draft and NaNoWriMo

I’ve started my first draft. Everything’s all planned out- what could go wrong? Har- har. Actually, nothing yet. I’ve just finished my first chapter, and I feel like I’ll have the hard part out of the way once the second is completed (I suspect this is naïve wishful thinking, though!). The first 300 words were the most difficult to write (at least so far!) but once I had that initial bit out of the way everything seemed to flow much better.

Seeing as NaNoWriMo starts in two days, and everyone partaking in it will be experiencing sort-of the same things as me, the first-drafter, I thought I would share what I’ve discovered in my first thousand-or-so words:

• For all you’ve planned everything, new ideas pop up at the most unexpected times, so it’s useful to have a notebook handy to keep track of them. I actually use the notepad apps on my phone and laptop too.

• Have a writing space cleared. Somewhere you’re comfortable writing, and where you won’t get disturbed. Like the “revision space” your teachers bleated about in school. I actually went one better and made two writing spaces (just had to get one up on y’all :P). One’s my desk, for when I use my laptop, and the other’s my comfy chair with like a zillion fluffy cushions on it for when I hand write.

• What my writing spaces have in common: a desk lamp! Important for when you’re writing at the dead of night/ ridiculous o’clock in the morning, ’cause I know often inspiration hits in the middle of the night but, seriously, I’m looking out for your eyes, folks. If reading in bad light hasn’t ruined them yet, writing in bad light might just do the job (laughs nervously and pushes specs further up nose).

• Get some killer tunes sorted. At the moment, that’s Taylor Swift’s Out of the Woods on a loop for me (ARE WE OUTTA THE WOODS, ARE WE OUTTA THE WOODS, ARE WE OUTTA THE WOODS). Maybe you like silence when you’re writing. But if you’re a background noise kinda writer, make sure you’ve got your jam sorted, be it heavy rock or whale music (though I’m not entirely sure if that’s not just for giving birth, hmm).

• When you’re actually writing, bear in mind it doesn’t have to be perfect. Which is difficult if you’re a bit of a perfectionist, like me, but suck it. Embrace the fact that you’re vomiting words onto a page/ computer screen and not fretting that it doesn’t read well. Save your fretting for when you’re editing. If you don’t have a red pen in hand, don’t fret. Chill. You don’t even have to write in order. Write backwards. Write forwards. Write sideways. Write upside down. Common theme: write, whichever way you want.

Finally, good luck to my NaNoWriMo friends, hope you have fun! Let me know how it goes!

PLOT MASTERPOST

Hey

Last Friday I tried (emphasis on tried) to do a kind of live blog as I Properly Planned My Novel. Imma be honest with you: it was crap. Even I got bored. I still needed my plot sorting, though, hence this post. This is for those of you who have an idea that needs fleshing out.

My story idea centres around a trio of characters: a man (Richard), his wife (Karen) and his mistress (Bronwyn). If you’ve read any of my older posts you might have seen snippets of it, but, to be honest, my original thoughts on it were useless. As soon as I tried to write it, I found I was clutching at some pretty slippery straws, so over the past week I’ve Properly Planned my novel. A step I have always tried to avoid. I figure I’m not the only one like this, but having actually bothered this time, I guess I’m qualified to talk about it now.

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Method #1: Snowflake

This is kind of what I started doing on Friday. It’s called the Snowflake Method, and, although I’m too lazy to use it myself, I know people swear by it. I could write a long and detailed explanation, but luckily that’s already been done by the bloke who actually thought it up.

Basically, you start small, for example with a summarising sentence (mine was ‘My novel is about the slow deterioration between a husband, his mistress and his wife, and how this leads to a vicious power play and eventually death.’), and build it up and up until you really know what’s going on in your story, who everyone is etc.

I think it’s a fab idea, and it would probably really help anybody trying to figure out what the hell is going on in their novel. The problem is, it’s massively time consuming, and I hate planning. I really do. I am a ‘just write it’ kind of girl, but this always backfires in my face- so here I am. Spending that much time on planning, though? UGH.

Each to their own, I guess.

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Method #2: WWWWWH (I think that’s enough ‘w’s)

Or in other words…

• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How

(I’m having horrible flashbacks to high school History lessons right now- anyone else?)

This is a really basic way of getting your story idea sorted in your head, but you can go into a lot of detail if you so wish. It isn’t going to give you a full plan of your story, but it’s a pretty good start. Plus, you can use it to plan individual chapters. JK Rowling did (see below; picture from: http://mentalfloss.com/article/26346/jk-rowlings-plot-spreadsheet).

Rowling has columns for the chapter number and title; the month in which the chapter is set; what happens during the chapter; and then columns for specific things like what stage Harry and Cho’s relationship is at. It’s a great idea, and one that would be a great help once you’ve sorted your plot and are beginning your first draft.

1. Anyway- WWWWWH. I’ll start with who. This is something I’ve never had much issue with- I’m a massive people-watcher, and I usually have an excellent idea of my characters. If characterisation is an issue for you, please check out Character Planning.
2. What happens? You might not know yet, in which case try out some of the other methods in this post to figure it out- in particular #1. Try and put something down, even if it’s just a few words: ‘a war’; ‘a battle’; ‘heartbreak’. In my case: ‘an affair’ and ‘a black love triangle’. You can work out the ‘whys’ and the rest of the story later. If you’re really stuck, just write which genre. It gives just the teeniest indicator of what’s going to happen, and it’s better than nothing.
3. I’m going to mix things up: how do the events happen. This is a tiny expansion on the last point. Think of it as the practical side. For example, you answered ‘a war’ to ‘what’, so how does it happen?
   a) with nuclear weapons
   b) with guns
   c) with swords
   How do my ‘affair’ and ‘black love triangle’ occur? Well, Richard falls in love with Bronwyn, who accidentally meets his wife Karen; Karen and Bronwyn begin a relationship… um, this sounds really sordid. But, yes, that’s how the triangle occurs.
4. When does everything happen? Really, it’s your choice. Some factors of your ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ might get in the way but- go wild, kid. Pick a time period, any time period. Go dystopian future. I am (kind of).
   Again, you can use this for your more detailed chapter planning. Check out JK Rowling’s plan again. She knows which month each chapter occurs in. If you want to do that, figure out your plot and start adding dates. A timeline might be useful with this. Again, if you’re stuck, check out my post.
5. Where do your story’s events happen? Again, this is limited by the other WWWWWH components, but otherwise you’ve got free-reign. My story’s set in a disease-ridden world ruled by a corrupt monarchy now. Go big or go home. But, if you’re stuck…
   Go logically. What are your characters like? Where do you picture them living? What happens in your story? What sort of place accommodates these events? If you’re writing a dreamy love story filled with romantic walks along the beach, you need a location with a beach (go figure). If your love story occurs in the mid-18^th Century, the setting of your story is going to be vastly different. Your love struck walk along the beach ain’t going to feature ice-cream vans. And so on. Yay for logic! Still stuck? Check out my posts on location.
6. Final part: why do your events happen? What caused the war? What motive does your murderer have? Why is your ghost haunting these particular people?
   Okay, some things just happen. But, let’s be fair: most don’t. The ‘why’ is, in my opinion, one of the hardest things to figure out. I think a lot of it depends on how well you know your characters. You need to really get into their head and try and identify with them. What would be their reasoning for doing whatever their doing? Head back to ‘who’ if you’re stuck.
   Sometimes, you can use your own life or historical events to figure out why things happen as they do in your story. Look at previous causes of wars. Think of what made you fall in love (okay, okay, sometimes you just do, I know. But maybe he/she/ they said or did something nice, and that made you like them. I dunno, what am I, a love guru?). Even with ghost stories, your ghost was a person once. They must have human motivations for doing something. Why does my, uh, three-way affair happen? A teeny bit of ‘it just happened’ with a huge dollop of loneliness and vindictiveness.

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Method #3: Rule of 3

This is a nice easy way of getting the vague outline of your story. Simple: think of your story in three sections. The start, the middle and the end. What happens in each?

For my story:
START- Richard and Bronwyn are having an affair. Bronwyn and Karen meet.
MIDDLE- Richard is kind of cast aside, and Bronwyn and Karen are in a sexual relationship.
END- Death, death, death.

Um, as you can see, it’s like leaping from stage to stage. There’s no development- how do Bronwyn and Karen get together? Bronwyn’s the other woman!

Really, this is your foundation layer. You still need to go into detail about the plot. This ain’t going to get you through writing a novel. So, maybe check out the next method for some help?

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Method #4: REVERSE! (I totally did not just start singing the Cha Cha Slide)

Work backwards. How does your story end? Picture it: the final battle; the romantic wedding; the detective catching the criminal. What must happen before that for it to happen? If you’ve used Method #3 you only have to do this a little bit before you reach the middle, which is sorted. Then you head back from the middle to the start. You can work backwards in two chunks- end to middle; middle to start. Likewise if you already have some sequences/ scenes figured out: you just have to string them together.

So, for mine: the story ends with death, but why? Maybe there was a row before. Okay, so why was there a row? And so on.

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Method #5: Just write/ Plan as you write

Okay, so I tried this. I thought I could just throw my ideas on a page, then go back and make it into something decent. I failed. I wouldn’t advise it unless you already have a strong idea of what’s going on in your story. Your choice, I guess, but it’s a horrible waste of time if it doesn’t work out.

Alternatively, you could plan a chapter, write it, then plan the next… and so on. Plan as you write. Saves time, I suppose, but I’m not convinced it wouldn’t lead to issues with pacing.

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Method #6: Go scriptwriter

I’ve done this before and found it fairly useful. Basically, you write your story as a script and then write the script up as prose. It’s fun, you get a better idea of your characters’ voice, and you might find your niche in scriptwriting. The main problem comes if your story is not character or dialogue based. Your story might be more action-based. Hard to convey just what’s going on in just words. Plus, it’s like having a massive conversation in your head. People talk fast, you know? You’re going to have to race to get everything down on paper, and that might mean you miss things out. This is a major issue for me anyway. I think of a cracking bit of dialogue, and I mull it over in my head, and before I get it on paper- I’ve forgotten how it started.

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I hope this was useful for you all!
Scribbley

10 Things about Writing Fiction

I know these are not new ideas, but sometimes I think we writers need the reminder!

i) If you’re not interested in your plot, you’re unlikely to write it well and other people are unlikely to like it either.

ii) You can write whatever the hell you want to write. If you want to write about hybrid giraffe-koalas ruling the world, you write about hybrid giraffe-koalas ruling the world! Don’t let people or the subject of current popular fiction change your mind about what you want to write. Who wants to write the next Twilight rip-off, anyway?

iii) Sometimes, your writing will be dreadful. Your pen and your head won’t click and you’ll end up with a terrible piece of fiction not at all like what you imagined. That’s life. At least you’ve got something on paper, and, besides, tomorrow’s another day. Maybe then you’ll write your masterpiece.

iv) Writer’s block isn’t an excuse for not writing. So you can’t think of anything new. Have another go at an old piece of writing that you put aside because it wasn’t working. Write fan-fiction. Write non-fiction. You might not be working on your current project, but at least you’re writing.

v) A lot of the time, writing is going to be difficult. You’re going to have no idea of what words to put down; the words might be too painful to put down; there might be so many words, too little time. You’re not going to feel like you’re getting anywhere. Worse, you’ll feel like a failure. This is a good time to go on the internet and google your favourite, or other popular, authors. Look on Wikipedia at their life story. Read some quotes from them. It won’t be all hunky-dory, and that’s because it wasn’t. If they say they have a whale of a time writing and being a writer, they’re lying. They struggled too, and they still got their work out there. People know their names. Someday, they’ll know your name too.

vi) One day, a friend or someone you know will get something published, or release a single or whatever. And you are going to be sickeningly jealous of them. Because you’re more talented, or you’ve worked for it harder etc etc. Truth is, people will be better than you. And their success isn’t your failure. Yeah, strive to achieve more than them, but if you do, you haven’t won. Writing isn’t a competition, folks.

vii) Kind of covered in (i) but you write for yourself. You don’t owe your writing to anybody, you don’t have to show your writing to anybody. At the end of the day, you should be proud of the result of your working. Not everything has to be published.

viii) That doesn’t mean you don’t accept advice. Do show your work to people if you want, and listen to their criticisms. It might be constructive, it might not. You might agree, you also might not. At least you’ve got someone else’s opinion on your work, now you can decide whether to heed what they say.

ix) Reading gives you most of the tools you need to write. Read widely. Enjoy it. Try and identify what it is you like or dislike about a book. If you don’t know what you dislike about a book how are you supposed to find things you don’t like about your own work? And if you can’t find things you dislike about your work, how are you supposed to fix them? So really think about it, and if you like someone’s work try and replicate (without plagiarising) the factor that you like.

x) Just keep writing. Write and write and write, until you write something you’re really proud of. Then keep writing…

 

Do you have any other reminders for writers? Leave them in the comments section below, or send me an ask on Tumblr so I can publish them for people to see there!

 

Don’t lose the plot!

Now, I imagine you’ve already got a pretty decent idea of your story’s plot by now. Maybe you’ve even got some scenes just waiting to be written floating about in your head. Now, it’s time to start planning.

1. First of all, it’s a good idea to do a mind map of all your ideas for the story. This just makes sure you remember to include all the brilliant ideas you have, and you can keep adding to them as you go along.

   Now you might be more organised than me, and have proper headers so everything related is sectioned off in its own little group. Perhaps you could colour-code.

   Then again, maybe you’re terrible at mind-mapping. This is where the trusty internet comes in. You can search for templates and software that kind of do the dirty work for you (fab, I know!). Alternatively, you could get a massive sheet of paper and some sticky notes like these:
   
   in all kinds of wonderful colours, write each idea on its own sticky note and stick it to the paper!

   Of course, there are millions of other ways to get your ideas down somewhere permanent– a list, on your phone, in a word document… Just get everything down before you forget it.

2. Next it’s time to organise these gazillion ideas. It’s time line time (hey, they’re good enough for historians). Here’s mine:
   

   If you’re writing anything historical or need timing to be precise, you have to make sure the date you’re writing about actually existed. It sounds silly, but, seriously, those pesky leap years can wreak havoc if you’re trying to be specific about dates when you’re writing. Then, of, course, you have to consider the actual day of the week. I have this handy gadget on which you align the year, month, and date you’re looking at and it shows day it fell on/ will fall on:
   

   Likelihood is, you don’t have one, but if necessary you can always Google the date and year you’re writing about and it’ll come up with which day it was/ will be.

   Don’t think your first timeline will be your final copy–  you’re probably going to have to switch ideas round. It doesn’t matter- that’s why you plan, right?

   If you’re like me, and the events in your story take place over a short period of time (mine all occur over about a year), maybe you could use a diary plan? That might be easier, and you can easily buy a diary or download one off the internet. Microsoft Office has loads of diary plans for Excel, and I imagine whatever the Apple version has the same(?).

3. So now you know when all the major events in your story occur and in which order. Thing is, your story can’t just exist of major events. If it did, it’d be pretty dynamic but your reader probably wouldn’t have a clue why all these events were happening. This is where minor scenes come in. They get your character/s from A to B and help the story flow better. They can be simply travelling from A to B, something that provokes event B, or something to show your character developing.

   Remember when you planned your characters. You thought about their fears, their identity etc. Their identity in particular is useful here because it’s the front your character puts out to people, the thing that needs to change. But how do you change it? Well, you’ve done your interviews and character planning, you know where your character’s weaknesses are. You simply write a scene which aims to change that weakness. It’ll probably help them in the next major scene, and if you have scenes like this frequently you’ll have a clear character progression at the end of the story.

4. Finally, to kind of collate all this, you should write a synopsis. This will give you a brief overview of what happens in your story, plus, think- if you ever decide to publish it, you’ll have a ready-made blurb!

Summary:

• Make sure you get all your ideas down so you don’t forget to include anything.

• Organise them, perhaps using a timeline or a diary/calendar to get them in chronological order. If your story is historical or very specific about its time frame, be sure to remember to check what day of the week your dates fall on.
• You’re going to need some minor plot details to get your story moving from A to B; these are good opportunities for character development.
• Finally, write a synopsis to bring everything together.

I hope that’s been useful and it made sense! If you want to talk through your plot or you have any problems/ questions, please leave a comment below.

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